Heinz Kaminski

Heinz Kaminski ( born June 15, 1921 in Bochum, † 17 February 2002 in Arnsberg ) was a German chemical engineer and space scientists. Kaminski was one of the first who could receive the signals of the first artificial earth satellite Sputnik satellite outside the Soviet territory. He founded the observatory in Bochum.

Life

Heinz Kaminski comes from a mining family in East Prussia. He was a chemical engineer by profession and was used during World War II as a naval radio operator. He founded and later led the Bochum observatory. Kaminski was also involved in environmental research. Although Kaminski was not a professional astronomer, he was frequently interviewed by the media to astronomical events. Kaminski 1972 Honorary Professor ( Physics Education ) in the Department of Physics at the University of Essen and lasted until the winter semester 1999/2000 lectures, so on " Satellite Environmental Research - Results and policy implications ".

Heinz Kaminski was a longtime member of the SPD, before he in 1978 co-founded the Green Party future action and in 1979 co-founded the Civic Democratic Party. Kaminski died on 17 February 2002 at the age of 80 years; he had three children.

Bochum observatory

In 1946, Heinz Kaminski founded the observatory in Bochum as Volkssternwarte the community college.

In the basement of his house he built on old wooden tables a radio receiving station and on the lawn in front of his house in Bochum in Sundern district he built with three colleagues, an antenna, with which he listened to radio signals from outer space.

On the night of October 5, 1957 Kaminski finally succeeded as one of the first outside the Soviet territory to receive the signals of Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite in space. The tape recordings from Bochum were evidence of the beginning of space

Kaminski took over in 1961 the management of the public observatory in Bochum, which since then was called the Institute for satellite and space research. Over the years he built the system from around the observatory and made the connection to the international space research. With the Bochum station could eventually signals a variety of spacecraft from the Sputnik, Vostok and Voskhod Luniks over, and in 1963 received the first time in Europe, satellite images of the U.S. weather satellite TIROS -8.

At the initiative of the city of Bochum Kaminski built in 1964, the first post-war Planetarium in Germany ( at that time equipped with a Zeiss Mod IV). Kaminski was appointed for its first director and held this office until his retirement in 1986.

In 1967 he installed a 20 -meter parabolic antenna in a radome, with all the Apollo missions were tracked. As his institute 1982, the subsidies were removed, Kaminski converted the public observatory in Bochum in the private " Institute for Environment and Future Research " ( International Office ) to which has evolved over the decades into a high-level educational institution.

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